IF conditionals

Question

Dear teachers,I am having difficulty with IF conditionals. Especially with the mix type..It seems that I cannot use them by hear and have to think million times before I make a sentence which I do not want this to hapen of course.For instance, Contex is:A woman father's died and his daughter says something about him to her mother.( 1 week after the funeral)'If my father was here, he would have wanted to go to France with you''..Is it a good sentence?please help me with these conditionals:)Thankx,Lisa

Avangi · Accepted Answer

AnonymousIf my father was here, he would have wanted to go to France with you.

To my ear, the tenses are mixed.

I'd say either, "If my father had been here, he would have wanted to go to France with you."

OR "If my father were here, he would want to go to France with you."

I suppose context could make your version possible, in the sense that "to be here" can have two meanings:

(1) to be alive now (2) to be at a given location now

You could reason that if he is alive now he would have been alive back at the time when you went to France.

(It's a bit of a stretch.)

But yes, native speakers do say things like that, even in talking about a future trip. It's like an imaginary alternate scenario, which we somehow shift to the past.

I'd consider it casual, and technically incorrect.

There's also the issue of the casual substitution of "was" for the subjunctive "were."

You may feel that since "was" is technically past tense, "If my father was here" refers to past time. (It doesn't.)

But I'm quite sure we must use the past perfect to refer to the past in this case: "If he had been here etc."

Edit. In rereading your post, I realize that you are indeed speaking of a future trip to France.

IF conditionals

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